ce
with every living creature and with GOD.

There are no peasants like the Russians, or who think as they do. They
are young, one feels, and "The thoughts of youth are long, long
thoughts," and that is just what those who know them best find out.

A friend of mine told this story the other day at a meeting, at which we
both had to speak, and I am sure it will bear repetition. A _moujik_, or
peasant, was driving a German commercial traveller across the open
country, and in the course of their conversation together his companion
said to him:--

"Your countrymen are nothing but a lot of idolaters. You worship those
_ikons_ of yours, and bow down to them as the heathen do," and so on.
The _moujik_ was very indignant, and grumbled out his disapproval of all
this.

"Worship our _ikons_ indeed! We don't." And as they went driving on he
suddenly drew up, and, pointing to a tree, demanded of the astonished
traveller:--

"Do you mean to say that I would worship that tree?"

"No, no. Of course not! Drive on."

With a very disapproving grunt he drove on, and when they reached their
destination, where there was a painter at work upon an outside door, the
_moujik_, pointing to the paint-pot beside it, again demanded of the
traveller:--

"Would you say I could worship that paint?"

"No, certainly not! You could not be so silly."

"But yet you say I worship an _ikon_, which is only painted wood, and
can't see that I only use it to help me to worship GOD."

Let the reader reflect upon the way in which that peasant had been
thinking over the charge made against him of idolatry, thinking what
idolatry really was, and how far he felt himself from it. Let him try
and imagine how one of our own agricultural labourers would think over
such a subject if he were entering into conversation with us as he was
digging in our garden, or driving us in a farmer's cart to a country
station. I am writing this chapter in a quiet part of the country, and I
can't conceive of any of the labouring people here even approaching that
line of thought upon which the mind of that _moujik_ began at once to
move, though slowly enough no doubt, when he was told he was little
better than a worshipper of idols.

I read the other day in a book on Russia that the peasantry are very
dirty in person, and never wash; but again it must be borne in mind, as
another remarkably well-informed and sympathetic writer[3] says also:
"When people generalize about the